robins 19 March 2008
here’s a theory sent in to me – apparently, the myth is that a robin in the garden is a departed loved one come back to visit – wonder which one of mine was here with me a few days ago?
names 18 March 2008
What’s in a name? Well, quite a lot betimes. For instance, my husband, one Richard Cook, shares a name with a high ranking official in the Disney Corporation and has therefore been copied into some interesting emails as a result. Last week he got one regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger and something to do with Canada – we couldn’t figure out what the something was, but it didn’t seem like a planned invasion or anything. Mind you, if Disney were to invade Canada using cartoon characters (including Arnie?) that might be quite fun.
Sad to hear of the untimely demise of Anthony Minghella. I was introduced to him the once and in the brief encounter I had he seemed a thoroughly nice fellow. I loved THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY though never saw COLD MOUNTAIN or THE ENGLISH PATIENT (are they VERY long, as I’ll have to check them out now..)
The birds are going nuts with the nest building. I see them swoop in and out of the garden all day with twigs and all sorts. This makes March one of my favourite months to be in the garden or just looking out at it. The lads tend to be less obvious when the chicks are hatching so it’s great to get up close and personal with them now. Had a nice chat with a robin who landed by me yesterday, actually. However he wouldn’t be drawn on why he wasn’t wearing a bit of green for Paddy’s Day, but that’s robins for you: they do their own thing and hang the rest of us.
paddy's day 17 March 2008
I was once the Grand Marshal of the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin . An honour, of course, but tarnished a little by the fact that I was effectively a stand-by option. Roy Keane, footballer and now manager extraordinaire, was first choice but he had a game on the day appointed (it fell on a Saturday that year). It was very odd to know that most of the parade committee were silently praying that he’d pick up a injury during the week and be unable to line out for his real work and therefore be able to sit atop a car waving at people in Dublin’s fair city instead of thrashing opponents in The Beautiful Game. Well, it came to pass that he was hale and hearty on the day and yours truly sat in the green sports car waving green, white and orange pompoms at the hoards of revellers lining the streets of the Irish capital, and great fun that was too. I had declared earlier during my speech at the celebratory breakfast (champagne, a big fry-up including black pudding and banjo playing before 10 am, I kid you not) that I regarded this journey as my own personal JFK-in-Dallas experience and was fearful of book repositories and grassy knolls along the route – that set the tone for sure (and shocked a few of our American visitors). I survived, though, and have a lovely sculpture to remind me of the occasion.
Incidentally, I love black pudding but found it a challenge for a time after an American comedian playing the Cat Laughs Festival in Kilkenny opined that it was merely ‘fried scab’…
housekeeping 16 March 2008
As an ex-housekeeper in a busy household I feel I should tie up a loose end on one of the recent blogs. So, if any of you would like to see the Des Bishop tv show online (he’s trying to learn Irish/Gaelic in one year) the url is http://www.rte.ie/tv/widescreen/av_20080313.html.
(Thanks to Mary in the US for that by the way).
I am reminded that when I was in Wales last year, doing an episode of their phenomenally successful sit-com HIGH HOPES, I was very struck by how many people speak Welsh as their first language. It was most noticeable out and about, like in the supermarket, where really everyone was chatting away in their native language. Sounded beautiful, I thought. And in the studio, the floor manager spoke to the control box in Welsh then in English to the actors – which was lovely to hear too and probably very handy as if you were being slagged off, for doing exactly what you’d been told not to do a hundred times, you never knew.
rendition 14 March 2008
One of the proudest days of my life was when I heard I had been made an Honorary Life Member of Amnesty International (Irish Section). This was bestowed on all 15 of the writers who wrote a chapter each for the novel YEATS IS DEAD in aid of Amnesty – a wacky and wonderful read in which (initially) each author seemed intent on making life very difficult for the next one by killing off the main characters in each chapter – very naughty. By the time it came to my turn Joseph O’Connor, our editor, was a broken man and had stepped in to write his chapter and stop the bloody slaughter. He begged me to leave some of them alive, which I did, and pump up a love story therein, which I also did, and then I was allowed to have whatever I was having myself too. Great fun and it was a thrill to be sandwiched between the covers of a book with the likes of Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt et al.
Anyhow, I had, and have long, been a supporter of Amnesty so it is with horror, though not a lot of surprise, that I see today that the Irish section says it has evidence which pretty much proves that Ireland has allowed flights used for so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’ to refuel at Shannon. This should not be allowed, in my opinion. And I hate the secrecy surrounding all of the dealings involved. We deserve to know what’s going on and it is through keeping the public in ignorance that bad deeds are perpetrated and a nation is made complicit in an evil it wants nothing to do with. Shame on our politicians or any of those who know and sanction such activity.
gig 13 March 2008
I was at a most unusual comedy gig tonight and it was great. Basically, over the last few years, Des Bishop (stand-up comedian extraordinaire) has taken to making tv programmes during which he takes on a task – he once spent time working in various jobs earning the minimum Irish wage and trying to survive on it, another time he went to disadvantaged areas and did comedy workshops and some of the people he worked with are now full time comedians. This time out he spent a year learning the Irish language and tonight he did his one and only major gig IN GAELIC. It was magical. Coincidentally, the tv show began airing this evening too. Catch it if you can. I know this is torture for those of you who live elsewhere in the world – sorry. What is interesting though, wherever you live, is his idea that to understand a community, in a meaningful way, you must immerse yourself in its language and this is all the more poignant as Irish/Gaelic is only really spoken fluently in pockets of Ireland. However, as he pointed out also, they don’t really give a shit (especially in the west of the country where he was) it’s just what they do, no big deal, a way of life. I learned Irish at school and was very lucky to have a brilliant teacher, Miss Dore, so I loved the language – most school kids here are at the mercy of a stupid syllabus and a system that just wants them to pass exams rather than love what they’re studying, and it is a truly beautiful and cussed language – difficult and cranky to learn but a total joy when mastered (I never got that far but I do love it still)
the post 12 March 2008
I had my picture taken in a very windy London today posting a large St Patrick’s Day card to make people aware that it’s coming and also how to stamp and address such things properly. I think it is one of the nicer occasions to mark in such a way and, for some reason, I feel it’s less commercial than, say, Valentine’s Day. Anyhow I heard from the lovely Donald who was looking after me in the chill and the wind that each week 25,000 or so letters and cards are posted with merely a name on them – it’s usually because people think ‘I’ll put the address on that later’, then forget and pop it in the postbox nevertheless. There is a detective department in the Royal Mail devoted to getting these items back out there legitimately into the postal system and a surprising number of items are ‘repatriated’ when lost or sent on their way successfully – that must be one hell of a satisfying job.
predictions 11 March 2008
I am playing a medium for a tv programme at the moment and it got me to thinking about that whole world. For instance, I think it’s probably true to say that, like private detectives, it’s a lot to do with common sense to begin with – you can guess a lot about a person from obvious things and appear cannily accurate when it is just using your noggin and watching for signs. So, wouldn’t it be good if the world of psychics joined, say, the winemaking fraternity and used its skills to help customers. Wouldn’t be too hard to set up Psychics Sips, for example, with warnings on the label like ‘if you drink all of this by yourself you will feel terrible in the morning’ or ‘can lead to self loathing and regret within hours’ or ‘share this and feel better on all levels.’ Just a thought…
that storm 10 March 2008
Alright, I give in and admit that ‘that’ storm happened last night, though I didn’t hear too much of it in Soho – some lashing rain and a gust or two of wind but really nature’s bluster rather than anger. I hear from many of you that it was fairly challlenging and awful elsewhere. But I do love the way the news shows made SUCH a deal of it before, during and after. Before is when they have someone standing in damp but not offensive weather going ‘ooh, the barricades are up and it’s gonna be a big one’ and this morning there was a great tv moment early on when a man pressed his hand to his earpiece and declared ‘news coming in just now that Dover is CLOSED, I repeat Dover is CLOSED’ – camp and fabulous. Tonight on the way home from the set (The Last Van Helsing, destined for ITV/Granada) I crossed Tower Bridge in a car and London looked totally wonderful and historic, complete with a fingernail moon lying on it’s back in the black sky. This time nature’s majesty gazing on a great city (innit, as we say here in Landin’s Tahn). Makes you wanna cry with content.
I missed the final of Crufts, sadly, as I enjoy seeing the pooches. But most of all I love hearing so many adults take such delight in saying ‘what a great bitch’ they are appreciating and sometimes declaring ‘now HE is a DOG’. It’s something like life, eh?
weather 9 March 2008
Well, we are supposed to be getting one helluva storm later but looking out at the glorious weather here at Dublin airport that’s hard to believe. I have moved myself onto an earlier flight though as I HAVE to get to London tonight so that I can be at work filming in the morning (the thought of not being in the right country at 6.30 tomorrow morning when I am to be collected fills me with the sort of dread and makes my buttocks clench with sweaty and well-nigh liquid fear…thought you’d all be delighted with that image, so…) Earlier, the G cat, sat sunning herself on the decking, looking every inch the queen of all she surveyed, and it was hard not to be really affected by her pleasure in the sunshine. I look forward to summer and her out there and am horribly reminded that our days together are numbered now as she gets ever older and near the age of departure (she’s 19 or so, I think, and that’s some age for a cat).
As to the forecast, when I was growing up I seem to remember everyone slagged off the weather people on tv because they always seemed to get it wrong. And even though technology has moved on for the meteorological types they can still get things a bit skewy from time to time – I wonder if this is one of ‘those’ times? This night shall tell a tale.